The U.S. Department of Agriculture has moved to repeal a 2001 rule that bars road construction, logging and mining in national forests, including more than 170,000 acres in North Carolina alone now protected by the rule.
Global photosynthesis rates trend differently on land, at sea
A recently published study finds that plants on land are increasingly absorbing more carbon, while Earth’s oceans are taking in and storing less.
Holden Beach moves to place pier decision in voters’ hands
Town commissioners have given unanimous approval to a plan to hold a $7.3 million bond referendum in November to replace the damaged fishing pier.
Efforts to curb flooding at battleship memorial yield results
Land around the Battleship North Carolina and its parking area is recreating itself, luring birds, diminishing flood frequency, and providing what the museum’s leaders hope to become a living lab.
No easy fix for Boiling Spring Lakes’ ongoing dam troubles
Officials in the small Brunswick County city thought the structure damaged by Hurricane Florence had been repaired, but a June storm proved otherwise and residents’ anger and frustration are boiling.
Proponents of Leland flood zone rules say it’s a moral issue
Advocates of the Brunswick County town’s proposal to strengthen and expand flood zone building rules say officials must ensure they are not putting property owners, emergency personnel in danger.
AG Jackson anticipates legal win over pulled federal funding
Attorney General Jeff Jackson, during a tour of Pollocksville Tuesday, said he is confident that courts will remove a block on grant awards from the administration-axed FEMA program for resilient local infrastructure.
Group forms to represent commercial shrimpers’ interests
The new coalition is to defend and protect the state’s commercial fishing fleet and industry and was spawned by the recent fight over shrimp trawling in North Carolina’s inland and nearshore coastal waters.
Work at Navassa Kerr-McGee site to take longer than planned
Crews have found “an extensive amount” of debris, including unanticipated contamination, meaning more cleanup time is needed for a 16-acre unit of the federal Superfund site long home to a wood-treatment operation.
Pender landowner on mission to conserve hundreds of acres
Clint North has registered 1,988 acres in Pender County with North Carolina’s Natural Heritage Program, one of only three property owners in the state to register 1,000 acres or more with the state-managed conservation effort.
Hearing on mandated wetland redefinition draws no support
Those who spoke Thursday during a public hearing in Raleigh urged the Environmental Management Commission to work with legislators to rescind the amendment narrowing state protections.
Plan would address threatened eastern black rails’ habitat loss
A public comment period is open on a proposed management plan that seeks to rebuild the once-abundant birds’ numbers by permanently protecting coastal marshes and helping private landowners create habitat.
‘Injustice’: Lawmakers vow to fight Senate’s shrimp trawl ban
As tempers flare over a proposed ban on shrimp trawling in the state’s inland and nearby offshore waters — a Senate move that supporters deem necessary to protect bottom habitats — coastal legislators opposed to the language vowed Tuesday to side with shrimpers.
Ocean water is changing colors, getting warmer: Study
Duke researchers used more than two decades’ worth of satellite data collected by a NASA instrument that scans the globe every two days to analyze the changing colors of the open ocean, which could have an effect on fisheries.
Oak Island residents say oceanfront lots unsuited for homes
Oak Island homeowners who have watched across the street as the protective oceanfront dune created by beach nourishment washed away time after time are pleading with officials to bar houses from being built there.
Coastal areas flood more frequently than thought: Study
Coastal communities are inundated more often than previously believed, with levels taking longer to recede in rural areas, and the way government agencies gather data to predict floods fails to provide true estimates, according to a report published Monday.
